Questions
by helloxbrightxeyes
Summary: Beth has questions for Daryl at the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1

"What'd you use to do with all your time?"

It's night time, the sky is clear and the stars shine brightly. It's quiet and hot, a little muggy so the cicadas are out in full force. Beth is laying in the grass a few inches left of Daryl's knee, where he's cross-legged, their hands connected, focused on the endlessness above them. She's never known anything other than relative quiet and timelessness and warmth (except for the Cold Times) and Daryl.

He lifts their connected hands to scratch at his arm and makes a noncommittal grunt. Beth is patient, she doesn't know any other way to be with Daryl, and focuses on connecting stars and the feel of the breeze lifting the ends of her hair. It doesn't shock her when he speaks – the deepness of his voice rooted inside her a long time ago, makes her feel connected to him in a very solid way.

"Didn't really do much. Wasn't so different." He quiets, looks down to see her looking up, but not at him. That's not necessarily true, so he tells her. "World was different, but I wasn't doin' shit. Was young then, didn't have to do shit. Drank, slept, hunted…survived."

He grunts and stretches his legs out before letting the rest of his body rest beside hers, feels the still damp grass in his too long hair, contemplates letting her cut it when there's some daylight tomorrow. Tries not to think about how his back aches and his knees hurt, tries not to think about getting old. He starts thinking about why the hell he's aging so fast when he realizes she's quiet, still looking up, still waiting on more words.

There really isn't much more to it, and she knows that. Beth Greene knows everything there is to know about Daryl Dixon's life from Before. About his daddy and his brother and drugs and beatings and girls. He's running through the nineteen years he lived before the end of the world, trying to find something new to give her when he hits on a particular memory – almost getting shot while watching a kids cartoon with his brother and some asshole. Daryl doesn't think she knows what the fuck a cartoon is.

"Used to watch TV." She nods – she knows what a TV is, asked about the big piece of junk in their attic one day when she was young. Daryl wasn't sure what to be with her yet though, and she was sad and missing her daddy so when he gave half a response she left it at that.

But surprisingly, they haven't talked about it since.

"Used to watch cartoons, all kindsa stupid shit. Wasn't nothing serious, really. Just supposed to make people laugh. Used to watch 'em when I was a kid, until I couldn't anymore. Used to watch 'em when I got older, would get all kindsa fucked up with my brother and laugh at cartoons all day." His voice is quiet and she's turned to look at him, like she does when he finally gets into explaining things.

It's a dark night, the moon is just a sliver, but Beth has those damn eyes and he sees them so easily as she blinks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. The concept of a cartoon is foreign to her, about as foreign as purposefully relinquishing ones awareness to do nothing all day, and his heart pangs a little.

The world will never be what it was. The herds of walkers passed through their place in the world a bit ago and people don't really make it up to the farm too frequently anymore, so it could be easy to pretend everything is okay again, but Bethany Anne Greene doesn't understand the simplicity of a fucking cartoon and there's nothing okay about that at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Beth has known Daryl since always. She knows that can't be true, but her first memories include him on the farm with her daddy, and she doesn't remember a time when he wasn't there. She knows the story, that he found her family after the outbreak, that her mama was dying and her daddy was old, that in exchange for shelter he'd agreed to protect the Greene's from the living and the dead.

Beth only knows one world, a world in which Daryl has a very clear existence. It's really nothing to her at all except absolutely natural when the spirit of her turns warm and bright in his presence (which is pretty much always) and his name slips into something like want in the way it comes from her mouth. She's met plenty of people in her life, but she's only really known two men – her daddy and Daryl. He isn't her brother and he isn't her father, he's just Daryl until he isn't.

She loves him and trusts him the way one does because they always have. What blooms in her isn't spurred on by friends and seventh grade sex ed courses. It just is. One day she enjoys his arm around her shoulder because it's always been there, and the next she enjoys it because she's close to him and it centers everything in a body she didn't realize was so terribly off kilter.

It's natural, it's right. There really is no one else, and even if there were she'd gravitate to him.

She gravitates toward him now from across the bed. Beth is never bothered by anything they do, but she can tell he's agitated after they've finished. When she was younger, she would ask him questions all the time, and she's taken to doing it now to calm him. She remembers him smoking a lot, but the cigarettes ran out a long time ago and this is the next best method.

Daryl takes up a good portion of the bed, sprawled on his back with one hand over his eyes and the other thrown into her territory. She lays her head there, at the warm junction of shoulder and neck. He's a little jumpy, because he's agitated, but he can't ignore her this close.

Still, she keeps her voice gentle and quiet, like he taught her for when they hunt. It rumbles out of her from her chest, barely there.

"How many Cold Times have you been alive?"

If it weren't for the fucking question, Daryl might laugh at her wording. But the question persists, and if she meant to make him feel any fucking better it isn't working.

The world went to shit when he was nineteen. His good for nothing brother left him with his good for nothing father. A quick hunt turned into a few days out by himself and he'd stumbled upon Herschel and Annette and little Beth. Cancer was taking Annette pretty quickly and Herschel was old and Daryl was hungry and they'd all kind of agreed that he could eat with them a few nights. A few nights turned into a few weeks, in which he'd warded off some assholes looking to take shelter instead of share it. There'd been an agreement made – protect the family, stay with the family.

He'd never gone back to his old man's trailer. Beth had been Annette's responsibility until she'd died, then Herschel's until one day he'd kicked the bucket, too. And then Daryl was alone with a kid. By then she was damn old enough to recognize the situation for what it was – two people stuck together at the end of the world. Wasn't that they couldn't stand one another, just took some getting used to on his part, being totally responsible for someone other than himself.

But he'd raised her, _kind of_ , in the sense that he never let her wander off, taught her how to do for herself, protected her and her land when unfriendly types wanted to hang around for a day or two.

She was a kid and then she wasn't. Daryl hadn't been like his brother Before. He'd been gangly and fucking shy, unsure of himself and angry; girls had liked his face, his voice (product of cigarettes since he'd turned thirteen), the whole quiet tortured bad boy shit, but Daryl wasn't just fucking to fuck. No, he wasn't his brother.

There'd been girls, women really. Nineteen when shit ended and all, so the screws from bars were usually older, didn't care about much of anything except getting theirs for the night. And there'd been once After, though Daryl'd felt so much guilt afterwards it hadn't been worth it. She'd passed through with a couple and their son, and some random people they'd picked up along the way. She was grieving the loss of her child, inconsolable to the rest of her group. They were a good group, nice people. They weren't a threat to him, weren't a threat to Beth, so he let them stay a few days. He'd stay up those nights groups stuck around, and the lady always seemed to be awake, too. It'd been a distraction for her and a release for him. Her tears afterward and Beth's footsteps, coming down to check on him like she always did, had ruined it completely. They all left the next morning.

But that'd been forever ago. Beth wasn't anywhere close to a child anymore and there was no one left. It was impossible not to notice the changes in her – the changes in her body, sure, but more in the way she regarded him. Started sticking close to him without purpose, putting weight behind his name, fucking smiling when she'd been nothing but bratty for a stretch of years he could only assume were fueled by hormones.

Didn't mean he didn't hate himself, didn't mean he didn't feel like Herschel and Annette weren't cursing him from the great beyond. He'd avoided her as much as one can avoid their only companionship for as long as he could. (Amounted to a week. Maybe.) There'd been all the typical angst he'd expected of himself, and then the breakdown, also expected because he wasn't particularly strong, a fact his brother and father had loved to remind him of Before.

And then she'd started holding his hand and kissing him on the cheek and sleeping in his bed. And then…

It was all good. It was fine. He was happy, generally. As happy as a smoker and drinker can be when the tobacco has run dry and the beer is gone. Happy enough when being in the presence of only one other person was sometimes enough to drive him mad. But Beth was bright as ever, happy to have her way. By some stroke of luck there was still game to be hunted and their vegetables grew heartily and there was fruit to be found. There was laughter in their house, conversation, very relaxing days after very trying weeks.

It was all good. It was fine. It still settled like a fucking rock at the base of his gut when he'd finish rutting on top of her, when he'd try to get far and she'd settle back against him. Like he wasn't taking advantage, like he hadn't _known her as a child_. He doesn't really understand why he keeps fucking her, except that it's just kind of the flow of things. Except that he really does like it until it's over.

He puffs out a stream of air, aggressively wishing he had a fucking cigarette, for the love of God, and stares past her. Silently thanks her for her patience, and responds to a question he'd almost forgotten she'd asked.

"Fucking winter, girl. Stop saying Cold Time like it's a real thing."

She's unfazed by his gruffness, usually is, but he can tell she's a bit uneasy in wanting to tame his agitation. Probably feels bad, like she's in the wrong. Beth's good that way. He can _feel_ her looking at him, waiting for what she wants. And she always gets what she wants, spoiled even when the world doesn't offer anyone shit anymore. He spoils her.

"And Iunno." He's trying to think about it now. For the sake of fucking mathematics, he'll round up to being twenty at the start of all this shit. But it's hard to keep track of years, of time. Everything just starts blending together and stretching on forever. They try to mark time with winter, because it's always warm until it isn't. That harsh line of demarcation is the easiest way to analogue change, but shit…it's all one long day at this point.

He remembers it took Herschel three winters to pass, so he's thinking he'd been twenty-three. He doesn't remember exactly how many more after that until that friendly group rolled through and stayed awhile, but if he's guessing he'd say two or three.

And then, Lord how could anyone forget, a few winters later Beth'd started honest to goodness bleeding and neither one of them had known what to do, and that'd led into endless summers and endless winters of unnecessary attitude from her. And then…well his beard is greying (grey, it's mostly just grey but he doesn't want to admit that to himself), and his joints fucking hurt.

In the end, he guesses he's been here maybe fifteen winters, not counting the one that'll start sooner or later. Fifteen years. He feels older than he is, and guesses neither his lifestyle Before nor After could be considered easy.

"Figure I'm about thirty-four, thirty-five now." It's still old enough to try hiding the answer behind her hair, though she hears it anyway. She lifts her gaze to him again and he's kind of embarrassed at how big of a pussy he's being about this, so he looks at her for the first time since they've finished. She has the prettiest eyes he's ever fucking seen.

Her voice is still low and quiet when she breathes into him, "So how many winters do you think it's been for me?"

That question isn't any easier, in terms of remembering but also in not feeling like a complete creep, but when he can't see anything other than her face, when he can feel her speaking, he doesn't really have a choice in getting closer. He loves holding Beth, never feels guilty for it. His body runs warm and hers runs cool and there's something that feels at ease in him when he's got a hand on her shoulder, her hip. His body, which is usually one jitter away from complete exhaustion, finds a way to be still when he's holding her. He does now, turns on his side and brings the arm she isn't laying on to kind of paw at her waist, slips it onto her back and relaxes.

She's waiting, getting sleepy but hanging on. Spoiled girl.

And he cannot believe in all his angst ridden self-hatred he never stopped to think about this, because it isn't as bad as he's always assumed. If he's been here fifteen years and she was four when he arrived (a fact he knows damn well because she introduced herself as "Beth Greene and my mama says I'm four years old"), then…

"Nineteen." And he's sleepy now too, in a way he usually doesn't let himself be after sex. She isn't a kid, and he knows if the world were right this would never happen. But the world isn't right, and he's the only person left that cares about her, knows about her. She's the only person left for him, too. And she's beautiful and he knows she loves him, because she doesn't know how else to be. And if he weren't such a dumbass, he'd have known all along the numbers they were working with. And she's smart and strong, she stands up to him when he's being an ass and waits for him when he's scared.

She's fallen asleep, satisfied with what he's given her. He follows.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for the favorites, follows, and reviews! These updates are like writing exercises; I get these ideas and try to make them work. I love the Bethyl ship and I'm so excited that people seem to like what I have to contribute.

Not all chapters have musical inspiration, but this one and the first do: Bahamas – All the Time for Ch. 1 and Kings of Leon – Beach Side for Ch. 3. This one was just a thought I had while on the bus and I didn't much feel like fleshing it out. Really, it's just an excuse for me to practice writing smut! I've always been super nervous to write these scenes, so this is the first time I've even tried. Please tell me how I did/what to do better!

"Daryl, what's wrong?"

Nothing. Everything. He'd given this group shelter a week ago and their bullheaded leader still isn't ready to go. Suddenly, there are four more mouths to feed, and he isn't sleeping at night so he can watch the newcomers, and it's damn hot in this house without a breeze in sight.

But none of that is really bothering him. They have more than enough food, and he'd rather be hot than cold, and if he's being honest, the four are a good group; of anyone who's passed through these four have been the most useful and he might actually consider keeping them on for a bit.

What's pissing him _the fuck off_ iseveryone's misperception of what the hell's going on in his house. When the new group had rumbled up his and Beth's driveway nearly out of gas and out of food, he'd gone down himself to investigate. But halfway through introductions and feeling them all out, Beth'd come down to have a look, too.

That big red son of a bitch, _Abraham_ , had let out a low whistle and thrust his hand forward. And Beth, as bright and excited to meet new people as ever, had practically skipped up to him to shake his hand. "I'm Beth, Daryl's –"

"Daughter, nice to meet ya." He'd drawled out. And before Beth or Daryl could correct him, Abraham and his group had started taking their shit and moving it up onto the porch.

 _That_ was the problem. Abraham's group had been on the farm a whole damn week and they all thought Beth was his daughter.

She'd thought it was funny, had giggled about it when Daryl was still dumbstruck after Abraham's mistake. But it's clear she doesn't _see_ – the way Abraham looks at her over dinner, even though Daryl can hear him and the one named Rosita going at it in the night; Beth must not see the way that creep with the fucking mullet Eugene eyes her like some lovesick fool through the day. Hell, Daryl's even caught Tara, some stray Abraham had picked up, staring at Beth when she thinks no one is looking.

They all think that she's his daughter, and most of them think she's up for grabs.

And Beth can laugh about it until she's blue in the fucking face, but the shit isn't funny. It isn't funny and he's going to set every one of those assholes straight tonight.

They've just had dinner, and Abraham's group has retired to the living room where they've been sleeping; Daryl's stayed back to help Beth clean because no way he's leaving her down here with all these dumbasses. He knows he'd been particularly grumpy during dinner, prompting her to just come out and ask.

"Nothin's wrong. G'on up to bed. I'll be there in a minute," he grumbles, finally coming out of thought.

Beth stops washing dishes to look over at him. He's digging an even deeper nick into the old wooden dining room table she's known since always, red in the ears and obviously deeply agitated.

And Beth knows Daryl and she loves Daryl and sometimes when he gets this way no amount of questions or hugs or silly games can get him out of his funk. She figures, no she knows, that he's so angry all the time because those people think she's his daughter.

But she can't find it in herself to be upset. People so rarely come around anymore and it's nice to laugh about something dumb. Beth doesn't care much what they think, because she always had a daddy and a Daryl, and she loved them both equally until sometime after her daddy had died and then she'd started loving them differently. And that's okay and that's just the way it is.

And she isn't naïve – she sees the way the men, even that girl, in the group look at her. But being rude to them isn't going to change that, so she'll keep on being nice and singing when they ask and cooking most anything they want. And they can look at her all they want, but Daryl's finally let go of his guilt about them and she's definitely enjoying that and Beth just doesn't want anyone else.

But he is angry and jealous and his pride is probably a little hurt, and Beth guesses she understands that.

So, "Okay. And don't forget to put the dishes away when they're dry," and she's walking past him now, whispering a _goodnight_ to the other group and heading for the bedroom that used to be his but now belongs to them.

Beth likes this room. The windows face nothing but green and blue, no driveway or fences to block the view. In the daytime, Beth loves to look at all the tall, thick trees and the bright Georgia sun. But it's nice in the nighttime, too. Especially now, in the summer, when all the little sounds of nature make their way in from the woods. When she was little, she used to wish it could be hers, and now it is.

She's sitting on their bed, brushing her hair out of its daytime braid and looking into nothingness when she hears him close the door. And because he's him and they're them, he comes around and grabs the brush and starts again for her.

It feels good and she sighs into him, leaning forward so that her forehead rests on his abdomen, and he's really more petting her than anything else from this angle. But it's not unusual – it's what they've done most nights since she was little, when brushing her hair was too big a chore for her little arms. The habit just kind of stuck, even in her bratty years, even when she was falling and he was avoiding.

What is unusual is that he starts to undress when he's done with the brush. When they have company, he _always_ stays in the living room with them. To keep watch, to make sure they don't get robbed blind or killed in the middle of the night. It leaves him exhausted and grouchy, but he's done it that way since forever, even when both her parents were alive.

She's so surprised by his actions that a little laugh leaps out when she opens her mouth. "Daryl, seriously, what's wrong with you? What are you doing?" When he said he'd be up, she expected him to brush her hair, give her a goodnight kiss, and be on his way back to the living room. Not this.

Especially not _this_ , as he ignores her completely and crowds over her until she can't do anything else but lie back on the bed. She's confused, really confused, but in an excited way and she giggles in earnest when he grabs her by the waist and sets her so her head's against the pillow.

And just as she's about to ask one more time, for good measure or whatever, what the hell he's doing, he kisses her hard.

The thing about Daryl and the thing about Beth is that he is so big and she is so small. And Beth really likes that. She likes the broadness of his shoulders and the heaviness of his hands. She likes the thickness of his neck and the strength of his thighs. She likes his arms, tanned ruddy and corded with muscle, and she likes feeling swallowed up by him. She loves it. And when he's over her like this, not keeping his weight off because Daryl's never cared about that, she can't do anything but moan into his mouth and buck her hips into his hardness.

It makes him keen into her and move a hand down to her hip so he can squeeze it tightly and direct her motions. Daryl likes it very slow with Beth. Slow and deep and even if they aren't naked, he likes to rub into her as slow as if he were inside. It makes her shake and nibble at his bottom lip and he's going to prove to anyone that can hear that this girl is not his daughter.

They break apart and undress and Daryl knows she's shocked that this is happening by the flush in her cheeks and the excited, clumsy way she gets out of her dress, all long limbs flapping to get free and just brushed hair going wild at all the commotion. She's beautiful and she's not his daughter and he's ripping his boxers off just in time to see her toss her panties to the edge of the bed.

They've never done this with other people in the house, and he supposes that's what she's thinking because she's giggling again but also glancing to the door.

Fuck the door, fuck the people downstairs. She opens her legs but he opens them farther and they're a well-oiled machine in the way he gets a hand under her waist to pull her to his chest, in the way she loops both arms around his neck. And he likes it slow with Beth, he really does, so he inches in slow and deep and it's good, God it's good, and she's always so wet and hot. But it's been a fucking _week_ , a shitty week at that, and he promises himself to take care next time, to take her so slow she shudders and comes long and without a sound, take her so she's so lost in bliss she looks like an angel.

Tonight is not that night. So he's out quick and pistoning back in even quicker, and inside she's gripping him tight in surprise and pleasure; outside she's clutching his hair and shrieking high pitched, a sound surely not contained by their four walls.

She bites her lip and smooshes her face into his neck, but it's for naught and she shrieks again at another shallow, deep thrust.

"Daryl, how am I supposed to keep quiet?" It comes out slurred against his neck, slurred and kinda crazy. And he doesn't answer, just drops her back onto the bed, no neck to muffle her sounds into, no hair to hold onto. He grabs her by the waist with both hands, and _God usually he isn't like this but it's good, it's great,_ and slaps his hips back into hers, rolls into it a little and the result is a brush just right against her clit that makes her sob.

"Don't."

And know she knows what this is about. He's letting that group just down the stairs know exactly who she is to him. They're putting on a show…as though she has to act.

When they're done, his face is sheepish but calm, all the anger and frustration fucked into her; she can handle it. Daryl is a quiet but emotional man and she's been handling him since always. What's one more outlet? Plus, she wouldn't mind it that way more often, and she tells him so as he drifts asleep.

The next morning is almost hilariously awkward. Daryl must have left to take watch sometime in the night because she wakes alone. But after dressing and braiding her hair she makes her way downstairs. Breakfast is already made and everyone from Abraham's group is already seated. It was already quiet, more than quiet – silent with a heaviness in the air, but when she comes into the dining room everyone's face gets red and that silence somehow gets heavier, damper. She's walking through a swamp of awkwardness and no one will look at her. She finds Daryl's eyes across the room and he smirks and she giggles and sits herself at the head of the table.

"I never got to introduce myself. I'm Beth, Daryl's wife."


End file.
